Chris Brown, Laz Alonso Try To Reboot A Dance Dream Team In 'Battle Of The Year' (Opens Today)

By
Tambay A. Obenson
|
Shadow and ActSeptember 20, 2013 at 2:05PM

It's not really being talked about - at least, in the circles (both online and offline) that I travel in, but fans of both actors might want to know that a film they star in opens wide in theaters today - a dance drama called Battle of the Year, which stars Chris Brown and Laz Alonso co-star in, alongside Josh Holloway and Josh Peck.

It's not really being talked about - at least, in the circles (both online and offline) that I travel in, but fans of both actors might want to know that a film they star in opens wide in theaters today - a dance drama called Battle of the Year, which stars Chris Brown and Laz Alonso co-star in, alongside Josh Holloway and Josh Peck.

The Screen Gems' film was previously titled Planet B-Boy, and is directed by Benson Lee.

It's based on director Lee's 2007 documentary, also titledPlanet B-Boy, which was set in the international world of "B-boying."

The $20 million film inspired by Lee's award-winning documentary follows an all-star American b-boy crew training to compete at the Battle of the Year International Championships in France. The crew and their coach must go up against the best b-boys in the world -- the South Koreans, the Russians and the French, who have dominated the original American dance form for the past decade.

Alonso plays a former b-boy who wants to put the USA back on top of the sport; Chris Brown plays one of the members of the assembled Dream Team.

This is actually a film that's long been completed. We first profiled it over a year ago, and it's now finally opening in theaters courtesy of Sony/Screen Gems, although the film was previously set to open last year, and apparently got pushed back.

There've been enough of these "dance flicks" that there was even a parody movie of them all, wasn't there?

I suppose Sony/Screen Gems saw that the only other wide release this weekend is the very adult drama, Prisoners (which has been on the receiving end of lots of acclaim and awards talk), and figured this would be a good weekend to release the film for those younger folks looking for something more age-appropriate and their speed.